


Lady Chatterley's Lover

by mydogwatson



Series: PostcardTales III [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Adultery, M/M, Sherlock deadheading yellow roses, different first meeting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 16:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9769844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: Sherlock Holmes appears in the garden one day and life will never be the same.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little late in posting, due both to real life [damn reality!] and also to the fact that this story rather got away from me. Sometimes you kind people wish there could be more to some of these little tales. And this is one that even I wish were longer. But there are rules!
> 
> Without giving away any secrets, however, there might be another postcard in the series that touches on this story. If you like.
> 
> And by the way, while this is influenced by Lady C's Lover, there is also some Parade's End that crept in, I think.

It all began innocently enough, but then didn’t most such things begin so?

Absurdly, everything that happened might have come down to the fact that the breakfast table was in a most advantageous position, set as it was just opposite the French doors that opened out onto the visually pleasing back garden. 

Mary, who was not fond of mornings, [being, as she was, a creature of late nights] paid very little attention to the lovely view. Instead, she most often just brooded into her tea, looking somewhat rough around the edges. John barely noticed her, honestly, or the obvious signs of her partying. And he certainly no longer expressed any concern. Whether that was because even the most conscientious of husbands wearied of being rebuffed or because he simply no longer cared enough to bother was unclear. It didn’t seem to matter either way.

Over his soft-boiled eggs and toast, John liked to watch the changing of the seasons, calmed somehow by seeing the waxing and waning of various flowers and shrubbery that marked the passage of time. It was, of course, also a most pleasant distraction from any possible confrontation with Mary.

So that was how their mornings began, with Mary moping and nibbling one slice of dry toast, John enjoying his breakfast and the garden flourishing. Had John been the sort of man to dwell on the little ironies of life, he might have spent some time considering how, as the marriage itself withered, the garden he had installed as a gift to his bride five years earlier flourished.

But although John Watson had a rather secret streak of romanticism in his soul, he was primarily a practical man, so he did not waste much time on things like regret. Not on most days, at any rate. Life was what it was.

On the morning that everything changed [although no one knew it at the time, of course], Wiggins, who still looked like and composed himself like the sergeant-major who had once served beside John in the trenches, paused by the doorway. He had been supervising the new maid as she served breakfast for the first time. John hoped this girl worked out. The turnover in housemaids increased dramatically as Mary’s behaviour grew ever more erratic.

“Sir,” Wiggins said, not even glancing at Mary. [John was of the firm opinion that his butler did not much care for his wife, but he was not bothered by that fact. And he was aware that the antipathy was mutual.] “I have engaged a new gardener, as we discussed last week. He is here and ready to start work this morning, but if you would like to speak with him first…?”  
.  
John waved a dismissive hand. “I trust your judgement, Wiggins. I am sure he will be suitable.”

Still Wiggins lingered. “Admittedly, he is a bit of an odd duck, sir, by the name of Holmes. Apparently comes from a rather prominent family, but something of a blacksheep. Even has a degree from Cambridge, chemistry or some such thing. But he fancies working as a gardener and his previous employers were complimentary.”

John chuckled. “Well, as an odd duck he might fit in nicely here, right?”

Wiggins only tilted his head in wry acknowledgment and left the room.

John glanced at Mary, who was now reading a letter that had come in with the breakfast tray. He briefly considered asking her about it, but decided not to bother.

She caught his glance. “Bippy Morris is having a house-party at the weekend,” she said. “I might go along just for a laugh.” She no longer even went through the motion of asking him to accompany her, which was a blessing.

“Hmmm,” was all John said, picking up his cup of by now lukewarm tea.

Mary returned to the letter.

John directed his gaze out to the garden again. Now a figure was coming from the direction of the shed, heading towards the rose bushes.

Still idle in his intent, John studied his newest employee. The man was tall and very thin, but something in the way he moved belied that thinness and John thought the man was quite capable of hard physical labour. He had a bird’s nest mess of dark curls and, even at this distance, a distinctive profile. The sleeves of his blue work shirt were rolled to the elbows and his canvas trousers had obviously been especially tailored to fit his long slim legs perfectly.

He was pushing a battered wheelbarrow that held the tools of his trade.

John absently poured the last of the tea into his cup, finding himself rather intrigued by the man, watching as he took a pair of secateurs from the wheelbarrow and began deadheading some of the yellow roses.

Mary said something, possibly about packing for her weekend away, and left the room.

Even long after the new maid had cleared away the breakfast things, John still sat at the table, watching the gardener work.

 

It was two days later, Friday afternoon, before John actually spoke to the man. He had been watching as Holmes trimmed the foliage around the small fishpond and realised that, in the warmth of the midday sun, the man was sweating. John found himself wandering down to the kitchen surprising Mrs Norman, the cook, who had worked for John’s parents before him. “Is there lemonade?” he asked.

She went into the cool larder, came back with a pitcher, and reached for a glass.

“Pour two, please,” John said.

She had known him from a lad, so said nothing.

John took both glasses and left the kitchen, walking around to the garden.

Holmes seemed intent upon his work and did not look up until John was standing very close.

“Hot work,” John said. “Thought you could use a cold drink.” He held out one of the glasses.

Holmes wiped one muddy hand on his trousers and took the lemonade. “Thank you,” he said. His voice was light and melodious.

Standing this close, John was struck by the intensity of the oddly coloured eyes. Grey and green and penetrating to a degree that he had never seen before. “John Watson,” he said.

“Ah, my employer.”

“Yes. Good to meet you finally, Holmes.”

“Is it?” Holmes seemed amused. “Most of my employers only bother to meet me if there is a complaint to lodge.” One corner of his mouth twitched up just a bit. “Is there a complaint you wish to lodge, sir?”

John shook his head. “No, absolutely not.”

“Good to know.” Holmes set his drink down carefully in the wheelbarrow and turned to his work again.

John thought that he probably should have gone back inside. He had things to do as well, at his desk. But instead, he moved a few steps away and sat on the wooden bench. He sipped the tart lemonade and watched Holmes at his labour.

After a few moments, entirely unbidden, Holmes began to talk. He explained the origins of a particular strain of rot that affected some plants growing near fishponds. Then he talked about the history of yellow roses.

At one point, he glanced over his shoulder at John. “You did not choose to accompany your wife to Wiltshire?” he said.

“No, I---” John stopped. “How did you know about that?”

“The chauffer who took her to the station is a dreadful gossip.”

John just shook his head. “My wife and I lead rather separate lives,” he said, before it struck him how inappropriate a conversation this was to have with the bloody gardener.

Holmes only nodded.

John sat on the bench until both of them had finished the lemonade and then he [most reluctantly] left the garden and returned to the house.

 

It was a warm, sticky sort of night and John was finding it difficult sleep.

Finally, he rose from the sweat-damp bed and took off his pyjamas. Not bothering with undergarments, he simply pulled on trousers and a shirt before shoving his feet into leather slippers.

The house was dark and silent as he moved through it and out the French doors to the garden. A faint breeze cooled him slightly.

Even with only the silvery moonlight illuminating the scene, John recognised the shadowy profile standing by the back gate. The red-orange glow of a cigarette cast a faint light on the angled face. The hair was a greater mess than ever and Holmes was wearing only the work trousers, leaving his pale torso open to the night air.

John walked closer. “Hello, Holmes,” he said.

“Sherlock,” was the soft correction. “I think that at this hour, the rules of society are suspended.”

“John, then.”

Sherlock held out a silver cigarette case and John took one of the Player’s Navy Cuts on offer. An engraved silver lighter appeared and John bent towards it. They both smoked in silence for a moment.

“Why are you a gardener?” John asked finally.

“It gives me time to think,” Sherlock replied. “Why do you and your wife lead separate lives?”

“It suits us. We married in haste and find ourselves repenting at leisure.” Then he gave a twisted sort of smile. “It gives me time to think.”

A soft chuckle was Sherlock’s only response.

John watched their duel streams of smoke float towards the stars.

“And what do you think about, John, with all that time?”

John moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. “Honestly?”

“I like to think you would always be honest with me.”

“In that case, lately I have been thinking a lot about you.”

“Hmmm. If I believed in coincidence, that would seem like one.”

“You don’t believe in coincidence?”

Sherlock shook his head. “The universe is rarely so lazy.”

John finished the cigarette and dropped the end, crushing it beneath his foot. “Is that your roundabout way of saying you have thought about me as well?”

Sherlock gave a huff. “I don’t know why. On the surface, you seem quite ordinary.”

“On the surface you seem like a rude bastard,” John said mildly.

“Does that mean we are suited to one another?”

John risked lifting a hand and touching Sherlock’s cheek. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Sherlock seemed almost to move into the touch. “I would be extremely surprised,” he admitted. “I am not one for the company of others, as a rule.”

“Luckily, I am not ‘others’,” John said. Then he did something that was as difficult as anything else he had ever done and took a step backwards. “No haste this time,” he said. “No repenting.”

Sherlock paused and then gave a tiny nod. He bent and touched his lips to John’s forehead lightly. “Sleep well, John.”

And John wanted to stay. He wanted to follow Sherlock back to the small gardener’s cottage hidden away in the trees and spend the night with him. Not since his days at boarding school had he wanted to pursue that sort of thing.

Which was why he wasn’t going to follow Sherlock tonight. He didn’t want what seemed to be happening between them to be ‘that sort of thing.’ This mattered. It mattered so absurdly much.

“Sleep well, Sherlock,” he said. He turned around and walked away without looking back.

Amazingly, he fell asleep quickly and deeply.

 

Alone in the gardener’s cottage, Sherlock stretched out on the narrow bed and looked through the window at the night sky. There was no answer to be found there, of course, for what was now the most fascinating mystery ever to appear in his life. But he watched the stars anyway, because it seemed like the thing to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Title From: Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence


End file.
